Amy Robertson keeps a pretty close eye on the Madison school district. She is part of a group of parents who have raised concerns about the performance of Van Hise principal Rebecca Stein and she tries to keep up with school board meetings.

She rates the board’s performance “fine, but not amazing,” but is a fan of seven-year board member Nicki Vander Meulen, whom she says “makes it a lot easier as a parent to understand what’s going on” by asking questions at board meetings and sharing information on social media. Nevertheless she is okay with the fact that both incumbents on the April 7 ballot — including Vander Meulen — have challengers. “Competition forces people to articulate what they stand for. Otherwise, it’s pretty hard to know what’s important to them.”

One of Robertson’s concerns is with the school board’s lack of clarity over how the district is spending the funds raised through the November 2024 referendum — $100 million for operating funds and $507 million for capital projects. Combined, the referendums add $676 in annual property taxes on the average-value Madison home, estimated to be around $481,000. The capital funds are being used to support renovations at 10 schools while the operating funds are for staff pay and benefits increases, and to support existing district services.

The resulting property tax increases, says Robertson, are pushing her to the “max” of what she can afford: “Those [referendums] look a lot more real on a property tax bill than a ballot.”

Attendees at a Jan. 13 candidate forum held by the Lapham Marquette Parent-Teacher Group raised other concerns about the board, including whether members ensure that parental complaints are brought to the attention of administrative officials. Parents also wanted to see action to improve student safety and address principal turnover at the district’s middle schools. 

Despite some discontent with the school board’s operations, there has been little interest in recent years in running for the board. In 2024 both candidates running for reelection were unopposed; in 2025 there was only one competitive race. The board’s president and vice president, Nichelle Nichols and Maia Pearson, have never faced a competitive race during their tenure on the board. Nichols has been on the board since 2022; Pearson has been on the board since 2021.

This year, Dana Colussi-Lynde is running against Vander Meulen and Daniella Molle is taking on two-year member Blair Mosner-Feltham.

The challengers say they’re representing constituencies not currently on the board. Molle, an immigrant, says she would serve as a voice for bilingual and multilingual students; Colussi-Lynde, who notes she is neither a teacher nor a parent of a student in the Madison district, says she would represent the average taxpayer.

Says Colussi-Lynde: “Even if our politics aren’t necessarily super different, it’s always better to have more voices and more diverse backgrounds. That’s how you’re going to have more innovation, more broad coverage for the topics that you’re talking about, because you don’t ever want to be making those kinds of decisions in a silo.”

Why hasn’t Madison seen more school board candidates in recent years? Michael Ford, an Oshkosh school board member and UW-Oshkosh professor who studies school board governance, says that the advantage enjoyed by incumbents might scare away newcomers.

“If someone has name recognition, especially in these historically low turnout local elections, that matters a great deal,” says Ford.

Ford also says that while the “primary role” of a school board is to better students’ academic outcomes, discontent with academic achievement is not a factor driving most school board races across the country. Hot-button social issues are, though it’s unlikely in deep-blue Madison that a group like Moms for Liberty, which has worked in recent years to get conservatives elected to school boards, would be that successful, adds Ford.

Teacher unions also play a role, as endorsements and financial contributions can significantly boost a candidate’s viability and union members can both campaign door to door and raise money for candidates.

“It certainly does matter a great deal from a financial aspect,” says Ford.

In Madison, each school board candidate endorsed by the union has won her race since 2022. In 2025 Madison Teachers Inc. endorsed Martha Siravo, who ran against Bret Wagner, for an open school board seat. The union contributed $5,000 to her campaign — near the maximum $5,240 limit for political action committees — and Siravo won with 55% of the vote.

Colussi-Lynde is a Madison West graduate with more than 25 years of experience in the IT industry. She says her top priorities are addressing classroom safety, creating a policy for student usage of artificial intelligence, and clarifying property tax spending.

“It’s our job as a school board to ensure that our constituents and our community understand where that money is going and what it’s being used for, and that it’s being used responsibly,” says Colussi-Lynde. “Funding is really complicated…it’s our job to make sure that people do understand how this is done.”

She says her background in technology will help her find efficiencies to reduce spending. At the Jan. 13 candidate forum she suggested that the district evaluate its software subscriptions to see what could potentially be trimmed.

Molle, who immigrated to the United States from Bulgaria in 2003, has lived in Madison for 21 years. She currently works as a researcher at UW-Madison’s Wisconsin Center for Education Research, where she studies equity in public school leadership. Her scholarship, she says, piqued her interest in running for school board.

“I gained an appreciation for the importance of school boards in supporting equity-focused work at the district level,” says Molle. One of her top priorities if elected to the board would be to strengthen staff support for the district’s bilingual education programs and services for multilingual students.

Trump’s election, she says, also pushed her to seek office. Molle says that having contested races “increases the legitimacy of the school board” as a governing body.

“I feel like democracy is falling apart at the federal level. It has been motivating to be engaged locally, because what use is democracy if you have an uncontested race?”